Five point Saturday at Spalding

With a much changed side due to injuries and unavailabities, Dan Rollins took his opportunity to impress with his first start this season and Andrzejewski and Hallam both put in solid shifts off the bench. A debut shirt was handed to youngster Mckenzie on the wing, who unfortunately only lasted 10 minutes, forced to retire with a hamstring injury. Another debut was handed to Hutchinson in the engine room, who impressed with his defence and ball carrying despite playing his first game for over 2 years. Stevenson also did well with his first start this season with Isaac Taylor absent with a hamstring injury. Finally, with captain Corcoran absent with his wife expecting to give birth any day now, prop McGuire took over his duties both as captain and number 8.

The Elks went 6-0 down in the first quarter with the same ill discipline at breakdowns that has plagued us all season. The fine line between competing for the ball at the tackle area and preventing the release of the ball is partly to blame, but the repeated offence of being in front of the back foot at the breakdown is simply not acceptable and players must take responsibility for this discipline, as it will undoubtedly cost us victories if not addressed soon. It's made even more perplexing when you consider the quality of our defence is such that the only way through for some sides is through our laziness and complacency of the back foot law. After 19 minutes, the referee had had enough and rightly gave a team penalty against the Elks for repeated offside at the breakdown and Southall was the one singled out to receive the team punishment, taking a 10 minutes rest.

The travelling supporters were made to wait almost half an hour before the Elks attack started to pay dividends, with Greg Taylor constantly probing all game at 10, he finally got his breakthrough as he spun out of the tackle and ran under the posts, unconverted however to bring the score to 6-5 in Spalding's favour. This also marked the return of Southall to the field.

Three minutes later we crossed the line out wide following good work by Rollins at the lineout, Alex Ayers punched up the middle and quick ball was released to send Jacob Heath over for another unconverted try, 6-10.

Four minutes later, Heath got his brace as a loose free kick from Spalding was caught by Stevenson, who made good ground and quick ball from the breakdown was spun wide right allowing Jack Partington to release Heath into the corner for our 3rd unconverted try and shortly afterwards the ref blew for half time.

The Elks defence had held firm all game against the Spalding attack. Unable to penetrate the elks open play defence, the two Spalding scores came from close lineout catch and drives, which were intersected by a try from Tom Pottinger to settle the Elks nerves. For the last half hour of the game, the sun shone through but neither side could take advantage of the improved conditions and so the scoreline set on 53 minutes of 16-22 was to remain until the final whistle.

The solid Elks defence and work rate proved to be the difference today, but the Elks face a much sterner test in the form of Bedford next week who visit us at the Stute, 3pm kick off.